Busy Bees

Lit smoker but didn't use!  What a waste of a cartridge (rolled hessian and corr. card.) The bees were very busy and very calm!

The temperature was 12C this afternon so I decided to swap Yellow and Red on to
clean floorboards. All colonies very busy fetching in pollen - probably willow and
celandine mainly.
This is what Red Hive floor looked like! What a mess! The yellow bits are cappings - they've been into their stores.

.....and here they are in their clean hive - clean floor, clean cover board with new Porter escapes and  clean queen excluder (QX) First check SHE is in the brood box and not in the
top super!! Much of the drawn comb in the super is drone cell.
What we don't want is Q. laying drone eggs! so be watchful.
 So Yellow and Red are settled, both with fresh candy.  It's still quite cold some days and although they are bringing in loads of pollen there is less nectar available.
Their floorboards etc will now be cleaned by scorching with my blow torch to destroy any disease spores/varroa eggs. Next job
will be to transfer  Blue and White colonies on to these cleaned floors.

Walked across the fields in warm sunlight and ----- saw first 4 swallows of the year! What joy!
QB